AOMEI Partition Assistant
Fixed: No Hard Drive Detected or Boot Device Not Found Error
What to do when noticed No hard drive detected? You can replace the corrupted disk or follow other methods to fix HDD not showing up issue in this passage.
By Irene / Updated on June 19, 2024
User case: no hard drive detected on my computer
When I turn on my computer, it says that the hard drive is not found and gives me these options:
1. Press F1 to continue. When I continue, it says the boot device is not found.
2. Press F2 to change boot settings. I have tried every setting, but it is not working.
3. Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics. When I try that, it says the hard drive is not detected.
I don't know what to do, so I thought I would ask the creators of Windows for help. I study on my computer, and I don't have a phone. I only have this computer, which is now giving me the error of "hard drive not found" even though it is a 1TB hard drive. Please help.
- Question from Microsoft Community
No hard drive detected often occurs on Windows laptops, including Dell, HP, Acer, and more. Let’s take a Dell laptop as an example. The symptoms of hard drive error will display like these:
- Hard drive-related error messages such as Hard Drive not Detected, No Boot Device Found, No Boot Partition Found, Data error Reading Drive, Seek error - Sector not found, and more.
- The computer stops at a blank or black screen with a blinking cursor.
- The computer does not boot into the operating system, and displays "operating system not found" error.
- Operating system-related error messages during boot process such as Missing Operating System in Dell.
- Clicking, grinding, or whining noise from the hard drive.
Generally speaking, the most possible reason is that your hard drive is failing, especially if it has been used for years. For the data safety, it is better to upgrade to a new one. After all, the cost of repairing it twice is more than purchasing a new one nowadays.
How to easily upgrade a new hard drive
If you encounter an HDD not showing up or other hard drive-related problems, replacing the hard drive may be a once-and-for-all solution. At this time, it is worth using AOMEI Partition Assistant to upgrade your drive. It has a Clone Disk function that helps transfer the entire old disk data to the new one and ensures Windows can boot from it successfully.
Most importantly, it offers Clone Disk Quickly and Sector-by-Sector Clone options. You can choose to avoid cloning the bad sectors on the hard drive or clone everything you need. These technologies also allow you to clone a large HDD to a smaller SSD with all the necessary data. No matter which method you choose, you don’t need to reinstall Windows and other programs from scratch, saving you a lot of time and effort.
AOMEI Partition AssistantThe Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
Pre-cloning preparation
Before you start cloning a hard drive to a larger one, there are a few things to look out for.
▶ Ensure enough storage space of the second drive: ensure that the second drive's storage space is at least the same or bigger than the source drive’s so as to accommodate all the cloned data and extra space for future files.
▶ Back up all data on the second drive: the second drive will be cleaned during the cloning process, so please ensure you have made a complete backup in advance.
▶ Clean up the original drive: remove applications, temporary files, or redundant records on the source disk. It is not wise to waste storage space for redundant data.
▶ Connect the second drive: if the second drive isn't installed on the PC, an adaptor or an external dock is required to attach the second drive to the computer before cloning.
▶ A constant power supply: when cloning a drive on a laptop, ensure a reliable power source since cloning can take a while, especially if you have a lot of data. And any sudden power failure will disturb the cloning process and cause data loss.
▶ Check the computer boot mode: if you clone MBR system disk to GPT or versa vice, you need to enter BIOS to change boot mode (Legacy BIOS and UEFI), so that you can boot from the cloned hard drive successfully. Therefore, please ensure your motherboard supports the corresponding boot mode.
Then, you can follow the guide to clone the disk to a new one.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Clone" in the main interface and select "Clone Disk".
Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".
Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".
Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to “Sector to Sector clone”, and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.
Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive.
Step 5. At last, click "Apply" and "Proceed" in the main interface to start cloning the hard drive.
Other methods for fixing no hard disk drive detected issue
If you still want to try to save it on your own, you can follow the practical methods we prepared for you. If this fails, we still recommend replacing the hard drive to prevent further corruption that could lead to a system crash or data loss.
Let’s see how to fix no hard drive detected on a Dell computer (example, the methods are also applicable for any Windows PC):
Method 1. Correct bad BIOS settings
Hard drives are commonly connected to motherboard SATA or IDE ports. If the port that hard drive is connected is disabled, hard drive will not be detected by the computer and you will get a message “hard drive not found or no hard drive detected”. At this time, check the BIOS settings can help solve the problem, especially when the HDD not showing up in Disk Management.
The hard drive that has Windows should be at the top of the list, which is another question you should pay attention to. You can change the boot device priority in the computer's BIOS setup if it wasn't at the top of the list.
Method 2. Rebuild MBR
MBR is an important section on the hard drive for the proceed of booting the PC. If it has errors or is damaged, the boot device not found will happen. AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you fix the corrupted MBR.
AOMEI Partition AssistantThe Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
Step 1. To fix MBR, here you need to right-click the hard drive, select Rebuild MBR.
Step 2. In the pop-up window, set the type of MBR for the current OS, click OK to start rebuilding MBR.
After that, you'll need to reboot your computer.
Method 3. Check hard drive cable
Dell hard drive not found may also happen if the computer isn’t physically connected to the hard drive. So you can check the hard drive cable to ensure whether it has a loose cable connection or the SATA cable and power cable may have worn out. If it is, you can reconnect the cables from both the hard drive and the motherboard, or replace the cable with a new one.
Method 4. Check and fix drive error
If your external hard drive is suddenly no longer be detected on your computer, you can run the error checking tool to overcome this problem by navigating to Properties ->Tools -> Check Now. Or you can enter command prompt window to check and fix error.
Step 1. Press Win+R at the same time to open "Run" dialogue. Input “cmd” and hit on Enter to opne the command prompt window.
Step 2. In the popout window, type "chkdsk g: /f /r /x" and press “Enter” (where the “g” stands for the drive letter of your external hard drive that is recognized but not accessible).
If you are fortune, your hard drive may be accessible after checking. On the contrary, you may still get the error message “hard drive is not accessible. Access is denied”.
Conclusion
The best solution for fixing no hard drive detected on a Windows PC is to replace a new hard drive. However, you can still try the other methods we shared.
With using AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can also use it to partition a hard drive, merge partitions, move installed apps to another drive, convert MBR to GPT without data loss, and so on. For Windows Server users, please choose the Server edition.
